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SoftRAID 3 QuickStart Guide

• Part 1: A Quick Look at RAID Scenarios.
  
  
• Part 2: A Quick look at the SoftRAID 3 Application window.
  
  
• Part 3: The Step-by-step QuickStart guide.


• Part 4: Making and Changing Bootable SoftRAID Volumes

Part 1

A Quick Look at RAID Scenarios

SoftRAID 3 lets you create 3 types of RAID volumes:

1. Non-RAID,1. Non-RAID, or standard volumes, resides on one disk, can be any size up to the size of the disk, unlike standard Apple volumes which always occupy the whole disk;

2. RAID 0, or Stripe volumes, used for high speed data access with video, audio and graphics applications, made of 2 or more disks, can be any size up to a sum of the capacities of all the disks;

3. RAID 1, or Mirror volumes, used for instantaneous backup and offsite archiving, made of 2 or more disks, can be any size up to the full capacity of the smallest disk.

Non-RAID and Mirror volumes can both contain Mac OS X and be used as startup volumes. Disks initialized with the SoftRAID driver can contain a combination of Mirror, Stripe and non-RAID volumes. These combinations are described in more detail in RAID Scenarios in the SoftRAID 3 manual.

RAID 0
The key for setting up a RAID 0 volume is to pick similar, fast, reliable disks and only use the first half of the disks for the RAID 0 volumes. The rest of the disks capacities can be used for non-RAID or Mirror volumes. In general, the more disks used, the faster the reading and writing of the data. The performance of your Stripe volume depends on which buses and disks you use. For more information read RAID Scenarios and Stripe Essentials in the SoftRAID 3 manual.


RAID 1
Setting up a RAID 1 volume depends on what type of backup you need.

Instantaneous Backup
To be protected in the event of catastrophic disk failure, you will want to build a Mirror volume, which can be a startup volume on PowerPC and Intel Macs, which contains at least two disks. In the event that the Primary disk fails, SoftRAID will switch to another disk automatically, designate it as the Primary disk and allow you to remove the failed disk.

Offsite Backup
If you want to maintain an offsite backup of your volume, you will want to create a Mirror volume with at least three disks. This allows you to store one of the disks offsite in a secure location while the other two are used with the Mac. When you want to update your offsite backup, you can remove the secondary disk from your operating Mirror volume and switch it with the disk which was stored offsite. SoftRAID will then rebuild the disk you just attached, in the background, while you continue to use the Mirror volume. See the Mirror Essentials section in the Manual for more information.

Server Archive
If you cannot easily backup your server volume because it needs to be available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, you can create archives using a SoftRAID Mirror volume. Depending on how many archives you want to store offsite, you can choose disks or tape as your archive medium. See the Backup Strategies for Mirror volumes section in the SoftRAID Manual for more information.